Chartwork and Position Fixing

BSAC’s Chartwork and Position Fixing course is a hands-on course designed for anyone wanting to learn and practise the navigation skills needed to plan more adventurous diving and put diving projects with a purpose into action within a club or centre.

This course has really enhanced my diving as I can now actively prepare and plan club dive trips. It’s also rewarding to use my skills to seek out potential dive sites and work on more adventurous diving expeditions.

The Chartwork and Position Fixing course is open to anyone and it’s a great way to get non-divers involved in the club, especially if they have family members who dive, as the course covers dive-trip planning and practical surface-navigation skills. No diving qualification is necessary to take part.

This two-day course includes a day afloat to consolidate your practical navigation skills following a day of theory sessions, dry practical sessions, and planning.

You will develop your overall knowledge of planning for more exciting exploratory diving, including:

learning about what nautical charts can tell you

working out the tides

how to fix your position at sea

how to locate dive sites

how to plan and carry out a voyage

At the end of the Chartwork and Position Fixing course you will be able to find enough useful information about potential dive sites from nautical charts and other resources to get involved in planning diving to sites that your club may not regularly visit, and will have the practical skills to carry out your voyage plans.

You could do this course at a regional event or local club. Not all clubs run Chartwork and Position Fixing courses, so please check if you are interested.

The course can be completed in a weekend at a regional event or centre, or in a club the theory and dry practical sessions could be spread over a number of evenings followed by a day of practical boat-handling experience.

Students will be given a pack of supporting learning materials. For the practical sessions you will need protective clothing suitable for local conditions on a small boat and a life vest or other suitable buoyancy aid.

After completing the Chartwork and Position Fixing course you will have the skills and confidence to help organise more adventurous diving for your club or centre.

Or you could develop specific skills to expand your interests further, whether you are a diving member or non-diving member. Imagine being qualified in diver first aid or becoming a compressor operator or mixed gas blender. Check out the SDCs you can get involved in.

If you are not already a diver, how about learning to dive on an Ocean Diver course. If you are already a diver you could progress your diver grade training.